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John Gardner book differences
PropertyOfALady
Colders Federation CEO
Awhile ago (about a year) I had the misfortune to discover the John Gardner editions of the Bond books had unoriginal text added in subsequent editions, US vs UK. Example:
Original UK, Nobody Lives Forever:
This time she pulled away, gently putting her fingers to his mouth. ‘I’m sorry, James. But no.’ There was the ghost of a smile as she said, ‘I’m a good convent girl, remember. But that’s not the only reason. If you’re serious, be patient. Now, goodnight, and thank you for the lovely evening.’ ‘I should thank you, Principessa,’ he said with a touch of formality. He watched as she closed her door, then went slowly to his own room, swallowed a couple of Dexedrine tablets and prepared to sit up all night.
USA, Nobody Lives Forever:
This time she pulled away, gently putting her fingers to his mouth. ‘I’m sorry, James. But no.’ There was the ghost of a smile as she said, ‘I’m a good convent girl, remember. But that’s not the only reason. If you’re serious, be patient. Now, goodnight, and thank you for the lovely evening.’ ‘I should thank you, Principessa,’ he said with a shade of formality. He watched as she closed her door, then went slowly to his own room, swallowed a couple of Dexedrine tablets and prepared to sit up all night, ready for anything.
Original UK, Icebreaker:
Administrative offices and a radio room extend to left and right of this passage which ends, abruptly, at a pair of heavy, high doors leading to a long, narrow room, bare but for its massive conference table and chairs, together with facilities for showing films, V.T.R., and slides.
USA, Icebreaker
Administrative offices and a radio room extend to left and right of this passage which ends, abruptly, at a pair of heavy, high doors, the entrance to a long, narrow room, bare but for its massive conference table and attendant chairs, together with facilities for showing films, V.T.R., and slides.
I feel like ranting about this and letting you all know about it! Get the proper editions, please. Don't be like me! Must be anger at 2017.
Original UK, Nobody Lives Forever:
This time she pulled away, gently putting her fingers to his mouth. ‘I’m sorry, James. But no.’ There was the ghost of a smile as she said, ‘I’m a good convent girl, remember. But that’s not the only reason. If you’re serious, be patient. Now, goodnight, and thank you for the lovely evening.’ ‘I should thank you, Principessa,’ he said with a touch of formality. He watched as she closed her door, then went slowly to his own room, swallowed a couple of Dexedrine tablets and prepared to sit up all night.
USA, Nobody Lives Forever:
This time she pulled away, gently putting her fingers to his mouth. ‘I’m sorry, James. But no.’ There was the ghost of a smile as she said, ‘I’m a good convent girl, remember. But that’s not the only reason. If you’re serious, be patient. Now, goodnight, and thank you for the lovely evening.’ ‘I should thank you, Principessa,’ he said with a shade of formality. He watched as she closed her door, then went slowly to his own room, swallowed a couple of Dexedrine tablets and prepared to sit up all night, ready for anything.
Original UK, Icebreaker:
Administrative offices and a radio room extend to left and right of this passage which ends, abruptly, at a pair of heavy, high doors leading to a long, narrow room, bare but for its massive conference table and chairs, together with facilities for showing films, V.T.R., and slides.
USA, Icebreaker
Administrative offices and a radio room extend to left and right of this passage which ends, abruptly, at a pair of heavy, high doors, the entrance to a long, narrow room, bare but for its massive conference table and attendant chairs, together with facilities for showing films, V.T.R., and slides.
I feel like ranting about this and letting you all know about it! Get the proper editions, please. Don't be like me! Must be anger at 2017.
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Comments
The biggest differences between UK and US editions of the Gardner Bonds occur in The Man From Barbarossa which is heavily truncated in the US edition. Anyone who wants to read the story in full must go out and buy the much longer UK edition of this novel. Two others that are edited very differently are Role of Honour and Cold.
Well, the UK editions are usually the fullest, though not always. I suppose the quoted examples are not major textual changes in the sense that the meaning conveyed by the words in both editions is much of a muchness. As an anomaly, I think Role of Honor (US title) is more complete than its UK counterpart, for example. The US edition of Cold Fall is also better set out and probably more complete, too. It's a mixed picture. The Gardner enthusiast really should try to collect both the US and UK editions of each of his Bond books. I'm getting there with the US editions. I have all of the UK editions, of course.
I'm not even aware of them all myself, but I'll try my best. It would be a gargantuan task I'd imagine to document all of the differences that exist between the UK and US editions! I think it's not that well known about though Nick Kincaid of the sadly now defunct site 007 Forever did a great write up on the differences between Cold and Cold Fall. I used to visit his site around 2001/2002 in my early online Bondage days. Mr Kincaid was the major influence on me starting to write literary Bond articles myself, in fact.
The Cold Fall edits article by Mr Kincaid is republished at the webpage below in fact and goes into a lot of detail on the differences between the UK and US editions of that novel. A highly recommended read:
http://bondfanevents.com/cold-coldfall/
Sounds like a plan.
You'll get there in the end and it'll be worth it. Cold is one of Gardner's best Bond novels in my view.
Though I can't be 100% certain as I don't own those particular new reprints I'm pretty sure that the US reissues of the Gardner Bond novels retained the US text. So therefore they would contain with the changes and additions that set them apart from from the UK editions. I'm basing this on what @PropertyOfALady said in the opening post above and in his other thread "Bond Book Butchery" where he made it clear that he had the US edition of Nobody Lives Forever and it had some textual changes from the UK edition.
Largely through my own personal research I believe that Role of Honour, The Man From Barbarossa and Cold/Cold Fall all have significant changes between the UK and the US editions. The US edition of Role of Honour has a more complete text than the UK editions which is more truncated. The UK edition of The Man From Barbarossa is the more complete text than the heavily truncated US edition. The changes between Cold and Cold Fall (as well as those in Nobody Lives Forever) are already well documented by Nick Kincaid*. Therefore, it's definitely worth investing in both the UK and the US editions for those novels in particular. I have also noticed much more minor textual changes between the UK and the US editions of Licence Renewed, Icebreaker, Nobody Loves Forever and No Deals, Mr Bond. There may very well be other minor changes that is be missed but those are the main ones that I've noticed thus far.
* Here are Nick Kincaid's articles from what used to be called the 007Forever website that go into more details on the textual changes in both Nobody Lives Forever and Cold/Cold Fall:
https://bondfanevents.com/what-are-the-differences-between-the-uk-and-us-editions-of-nobody-lives-forever/
https://bondfanevents.com/what-is-the-controversy-surrounding-john-gardners-bond-novel-cold-fall/
Thank you, @Birdleson. I try to be as helpful as I can and John Gardner is one of my special interests within Bond.
My belated thanks to you @Dragonpol for your reply. On the basis of your reply, I've ordered the UK edition of Barbarossa through Book Depository. I'd be curious to compare it with my long-held US hardcover of that novel to see just what I've been missing for two decades now!
Thanks, @timdalton007. Glad to hear you've ordered the UK edition so that you can see the differences in the text. As I said in my post above Barbarossa and Cold/Cold Fall are probably the two with the biggest textual differences between the UK and the US editions. Barbarossa I would still say is the one with the most textual changes as it wasn't the "same mixture as before " and so Putnam were aghast and it was therefore heavily edited. Funnily enough (being from the UK) it was the US Putnam first edition of Barbarossa that I found first back in 2002 so it wasn't until quite some time later that I realised the UK edition was much more complete.